I would have never believed it. To hear this kind of news, you must be kidding. I eat right, or think I do. I’m not tremendously overweight, at least if I compare myself with the general populace. I exercise sometimes, in spite of the fact that the media tells me that I only have to do 20 minutes of vigorous exercise everyday. I must remember that everyone has a different definition of vigorous!

About 15 years ago, my wife and I were attending a health fair at one of the local hotels. I had been thinking more seriously about what I would look like when I got to be in my 60’s and beyond. Looking at the people around me, I realized that I was pretty healthy and really didn’t have any serious health issues (or so I thought). Sure, I had some heart problems, my joints hurt due to a bad knee injury left over from basic training, took Tums for my stomach after evening meals, and was pushing 200 pounds for my 6 foot frame. Wasn’t this the norm? Isn’t this America where it was okay to be 20-30 pounds overweight and talk about all your health issues?

It was at the health fair, that I took one of the devices you hold in your hands at chest level for a minute or so and the readout came: OBESE. What? You are kidding, right? OBESE at 26 percent body fat? OBESE? I didn’t like that word. For me it was the start of my quest to be healthier. I needed to do something about it. But what do I do? I had been at this weight for over 30 years! Why would I want to change? This was my wake-up call. However, it wasn’t one of those instant changes where you decide to go on a crash diet by not eating, drinking only water for a week straight to get back into shape. There was no way I was going to do that. I had seen other people try it, and after a week of dehydration, they would typically go back to eating like they had always done as that was their “comfort zone” and they were not about make a change.

For my wife and I, it was more about taking a look at where we were, assessing the situation, and starting to make subtle changes. I was content with my weight at that time. I did not realize that I would be more content, as well as comfortable, if I lost some of those extra pounds that were classifying me as “obese.”

The first thing I did was to start reading labels and counting calories. Not that I knew anything at the time about what I was reading, but it sounded good. The next thing was to eliminate things I didn’t really need like candy, sugar, sodas, junk food, etc. Needless to say, just by doing that, I reduced that number of Tums I was taking every night.

The next step, I hypothesized correctly, was the need for some sort of vitamin supplementation. There are a million different variations of nutritional vitamin supplements on the market. Everyone advertises theirs as the best. I started with a vitamin network marketing company that said they could prove they were the best. They had the documentation, the doctors’ endorsements, and at the plenty of testimonies endorsing the products.